I met Ashley for the first time in March 2015 at a Noodles & Company in Indianapolis. Her adoptive father Craig Peterson had arranged the meeting. He initially reached out to me about an article I'd written, then shared bits of Ashley's story.
Children & Families
Ashley stepped out of Sandy’s red-and-white van. The 10-year-old didn’t say a word, didn’t glance back at Sandy, her adoptive mother. And she refused to meet the hazel eyes of the man waiting in front of her.
Butch and Sandy Kimmerling wasted no time. Soon after child welfare officials voted to allow a gay man to adopt the foster child who had been living in the Kimmerlings’ home for five years, Butch and Sandy contacted their pastor.
Ashley would be exploited, abused and, ultimately, abandoned by people who said they cared about her. And her invisible wounds would persist for decades.
"I was the only person willing to protect me." Ashley Peterson on surviving abuse, being shamed for speaking up, and why there should be no statute of limitations.
Child neglect is closely tied to poverty. By focusing on individual families accused of mistreating their kids, are we letting society off the hook?
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While reporting on the juvenile justice beat for about two years, youth advocates, public defenders, juvenile re-entry workers and probation staff told me too many kids slipped through the cracks.
In rain or snow, Route 5010 in New Mexico is impassable — a quagmire that highlights the government’s shameful neglect of Native people.
“Toxic City: Sick Schools,” a three-part Inquirer investigative series, won the $5,000 Gannett Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism, which will be presented to The Inquirer at IRE’s June conference in Houston.